Fathers, sons and architects

4 NEW RELEASES

MY EAR AT HIS HEART: READING MY FATHER

by Hanif Kureishi
Faber and Faber
£3.99

Kureishi's most popular works have been his often-hilarious, always irreverent novels and screenplays about the Asian experience in the UK (The Buddha of Suburbia, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid).

They might leave you unprepared for this poignant memoir in which he relates the story of his father's failed attempts to become a writer.

The story begins with Kureishi's discovery of an abandoned manuscript that recounts his father's childhood in Bombay as India heads for Partition.

Particularly moving are Kureishi's reflections on the immigrant experience and how his father's failed attempts affected his own literary career.

GANDHINAGAR: BUILDING NATIONAL IDENTITY IN POSTCOLONIAL INDIA

by Ravi Kalia
Oxford University Press
Rs 495
165 pages

The culmination of Ravi Kalia's trilogy on the formation of capital cities in postcolonial India, Gandhinagar joins the historian's other two volumes, on Chandigarh and Bhubaneshwar, in tracing India's efforts to establish its 20th-century architectural identity.

Kalia explains that Gandhinagar became a battleground for the competing ideals that surfaced during the buildingof Chandigarh and Bhubaneshwar.

Within this context, he explores the impact of modernist architecture on India and suggests that this style gained acceptance due to its minimalist design and unadorned spaces.

He also explains how two competing versions of Indian history and ideology "" Gandhi's and Nehru's "" employed modernism's ideals for their own separate ends.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF

by Rick Riordan
Puffin
£3.25
400 pages

A school museum expedition gives Percy Jackson the first hint that he might not be a normal 12-year-old. Things only get stranger as he discovers that he might be one of the mortal children of the Gods of Olympus.

As always, great responsibility accompanies great power, and Percy soon finds himself journeying across the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction "" Zeus' master bolt.

Along the way, he must face a host of mythological enemies determined to stop him.

Though it's derivative of Harry Potter in its structure, Riordan's fantasy certainly succeeds in providing an entertaining contemporary spin on Greek mythology "" it's another matter that it could just as easily be accused of dumbing down.

Predictably, this is the first book in a new series. Also predictably, it's already won movie rights!

A SIKH BOY

by Mohinder Singh
Harper Collins
Rs 295
230 pages

More on the Partition theme. Set in the fictitious town of Sripur in the first half of the 20th century, this book is an account of growing up in a middle-class Sikh household in the years before electricity and running water.

Cocooned in the embrace of his extended family, little Monu lives an enviable life until external events cast a shadow on his idyllic childhood.

This is a quiet, intimate story about a community living through difficult times.